Who doesn’t love a kung fu panda? HI-YA! From cave paintings, frieze reliefs and spinning pottery attempting to convey motion, to the Victorian thaumatrope toy and the 1868 flip book, the development of animation has come a long way to reach a fully animated martial arts panda. This development urges us to think of animation as art, not just entertainment.

You may not first think of animation as a highly esteemed visual art form, but it certainly captures a large and important audience, along with highly talented creators, not to mention a hefty chunk of revenue. Possibly the first animated film, created in 1906 by American J. Stuart Blackton, was Humorous Phases of Funny Faces. The film tells the story of a cartoonist drawing faces on a chalkboard, with the faces coming to life. In the United States, animation began in the 1900s age of silent film with Bray Studios in New York City with characters like Felix the Cat, and moved into the Golden Age of Hollywood animation with Walt Disney’s many creations including Mickey Mouse, Betty Boop and Popeye. The 1950s through the 1980s brought the beginning of Saturday Morning Cartoons, perhaps the first visual art to which most children are exposed. Today, modern animation seems limitless with evolving computer technology, marked by the first fully computer generated feature film Toy Story. Animation now caters to adult audiences and appeals to the masses with niches such as Japanese Anime and stop motion animation like Wallace and Gromit. It is also incorporated into live action movies such as the Lord of the Rings series, blurring the lines between the two forms of cinema.

Animation comes with its share of sterotypes in America. Among them are a lack of being taken seriously and the opinion that animation is for kids. Actually, one might argue that the only difference between live cinema and an animated movie is the art of photography verses drawing, as Paul le Fou smartly pointed out on his blog Anima in 2007. It’s obvious that the business of animation is huge, and while I wasn’t able to track down what percentage of the movie industry is made up of animated films, a rush of other media outlets using animation come to mind – video and computer games, advertisements and all news outlets. Indiana even boasts its own animation genius Jim Davis, father of Garfield the cat.

Focusing on the science of animation, a local exhibition at The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis, called Animation, traces the process of creating a cartoon from storyboarding to design, voice recording and final editing with interactive features. The Cartoon Network brings the exhibit to life with characters from The Flintstones, Scooby-Doo and others. This one is sure to intrigue all ages.

The Indianapolis Museum of Art’s Friday night film series Summer Nights includes its own animation magic. Each film is preceded by a cartoon featuring one of your favorites (Mine? Pepe LePew!):

Gilda – Cartoon: Hare-Raising Hare
This is Spinal Tap – Cartoon: Rabbit’s Kin
The Goonies – Cartoon: Devil May Hare
Glory – Cartoon: Bunker Hill Bunny
The Rocky Horror Picture Show -
Cartoon: Water, Water Every Hare
The Mummy – Cartoon: The Rabbit of Seville
The Big Lebowski – Cartoon: Don’t Give Up the Sheep
Strangers on a Train – Cartoon: Baton Bunny
Devil in Blue Dress – Cartoon: Bugs & Thugs
Dr. Strangelove – Cartoon: Duck Amuck
Sholay – Cartoon: Ballot Box Bunny
Ghostbusters – Cartoon: Duck Dodgers in the 24½th Century, starring Daffy Duck
Click here for a full schedule of Summer Night films.

Maybe it’s time American culture takes a cue from Japan and embraces the Kung Fu Panda with the respect he deserves.

TONIGHT: Catch the last night of The Animation Show, featuring new independent animation, at Key Cinemas Filmworks tonight at 7:00 pm and 8:30 pm. “This year Mike Judge has gathered together over two dozen of his favorite funny short films from around the world. It’s a ground breaking program of eye-popping adult animation from tomorrow’s next great animators. This isn’t a dirty “adults only” animation show, but the program does skew towards a mature audience with some explicit language and adult subject matter.”